The Bear is back and so am I, check out my recap of The Bear S1:E03 Brigade after the break! We’re going to find out what a chillarchy is!
We open on the beach with a shaggy and sweaty Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) staring into the ether before joining a Al-Anon meeting…somewhere else.
The moderator repeats the three of the main tenets of Al-Anon:
- I didn’t cause it
- I can’t control it
- I can’t cure it
Which is fine and I am cruising along and then I realise the moderator is MOLLY RINGWALD and I absolutely lose my shit.
Molly Ringwald is a legend and I’m so happy to see her! I need a minute. She looks fantastic!
Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t even focus on what she’s saying because I just got too emotional. I haven’t seen her in a million years! Oh I’m so happy.
Okay okay on the show The Bear , which is what we’re watching, TTM, she talks about feeling like a victim most of her life and dealing with her husband’s alcoholism. She went through the stages of blame and shame and ended up in a place where she can think about keeping her own side of the street clean. To remove herself from toxic situations as soon as they present or appear to. You can’t do that when you’re in the same chemistry. Carmy listens.
We leave the quiet calm and we’re back at the sandwich shop with ‘cousin’ Richard ‘Richie’ Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) shouting at the ‘jagoffs’ not pumping out enough food –
IN FRONT OF CUSTOMERS
as prep cook Sydney Adamo (Ayo Edebiri) points out that it’s because RICHIE isn’t firing anything. As in pushing buttons to order stuff from the kitchen.
Carmy is the boss but he’s not a conflict guy, he wraps sandwiches while they fight over top of him.
Thank god he has Sydney.
Carmy quietly calms them down.
Late at night, Carmy reads up on Al-Anon and heads into work very very early. Breadmaker Marcus (Lionel Boyce) has hung up pictures all over his station, all from Carmy’s book.
Carmy was not always a overworked underappreciated broke sandwich shop operator; he’s also a culinary wunderkind. Marcus loves the bright colours of the deeply weird fancy food.
Carmy breaks down the composition of one particularly bright dish with four types of plums. Sydney listening idly figures out the secret of the dish because she is also a culinary wunderkind.
Carmy takes Sydney in the back for a discussion but stops Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) to ask why Carmy’s late brother Michael and former owner of the restaurant was ordering the wrong tomatoes.
What are wrong tomatoes? I’m glad you asked! They are not #10s and they are in a 28 oz can. There, I’m glad that was addressed. Finally.
– Michael killed himself and left the restaurant to his brother Carmy. We don’t know why he did anything, including borrowing 300k from his super shady but adorable Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt).
Carmy wants Syndey to run an old school French kitchen brigade, she doesn’t wanna.
Carmy wants Sydney to clean up the flow but she says it will create a ‘toxic hierarchical shitshow” but…what is it now? SAME.
Carmy is taking lessons from Al-Anon about changing the chemistry of the shop so there can be healing and peace and enough peppers when they need them, damn it!
He will be business, she will be everything else!
Carmy debuts the plan immediately after in a staff meeting after handing out great blue aprons. Now they look like a team! Tina will not be wearing hers, of course.
I was literally holding my breath waiting for Richie as Carmy explains how he wants the kitchen to work, and there comes Richie. He comes in with a homophobic pun because he is Richie and then leaves as fast, whew!
A French brigade is a hierarchy and there is none of that in this kitchen currently. It is also about just doing one thing and again as at Al-Anon: keeping your side of the street clean.
This show keeps surprising me, I like it!
The roles in this ‘chillarchy’ (okay Sydney)!
– Carmy – Chef De Cuisine
– Sydney – Sous Chef
– Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) Garde Manger
– Ebraheim – Chef de Partie – he accepts hahaha
– Marcus – Pâtissier, – he is very excited; he wants to bake!
The phone has been ringing ringing all episode, Carmy finally answers and it’s Nico looking for the deceased Michael, which makes Carmy forget he’s dead. Richie says he’ll handle it but the real problem is Carmy’s chest pains and ears ringing after.
He goes back to church and everyone else goes to work.
It’s all on Sydney, and I forget how young she is. She takes a second before inspecting work stations.
Tina sabotages everything Sydney does, like she did with Carmy.
Carmy gets back from Al-Anon to see Richie being super shady out back with some dude, is this Nico? Inside the kitchen, Tina messes with Sydney again, Carmy says it’s part of paying her dues.
She’s going to pull a massive tub of veal stock down onto her head because she refuses to ask the members of her team for help and I can barely watch.
Why did someone put 20 quarts of veal stock on the very top shelf of a mostly empty cooler?? Is that more messing with her? She refuses Marcus’s offer of help and now the veal stock is on the dirty and now dirtier floor.
She’s quiet now as Marcus helps her clean up.
Sydney sits out back instead of joining everyone for Family Style, Carmy asks her what’s up. She’s had a terrible day, she felt he came for her but he holds her to a higher standard. He expects more of her because at the very least, she know what the hierarchy in a French brigade means: you don’t talk back and you answer everything with ‘yes chef.’
She needs him to listen to her. She wants to make a difference, that’s why she’s there and not at some pretentious place tweezing herbs. And he left.
Carmy explains why he left, the meeting, his brother, she says that was too personal.
She’s messing with him.
*If you do not understand the glory of Jeremy Allen White’s eyes after that scene, I’m sorry about your poor optometric health.
Carmy’s missed a bunch of calls from his sister Sugar (Abby Elliot), it’s Michael’s birthday and maybe she needs to talk. He goes to the beach instead and we’re out.
Until next time, everyone.
MOLLY RINGWALD!!!!
